Mobile EU electorates and democratic participation (MOBILEU)
EU General Data Protection Regulation
Art. 12 to 14
Date: 26 Jan 2023
The MOBILEU study processes personal data. The purpose of this privacy note is to provide information about the personal data being processed, where the personal data is collected from and how it is used in research. At the end of the description, more detail is provided on the rights that registered persons have.
Participating in the study and providing personal information is voluntary. You will not face any negative penalty if you do not participate in the study or if you interrupt your participation in the study.
Controller for the processing of personal data
The organization responsible for the processing of personal data is the University of Helsinki
Contact information:
University of Helsinki
P.O.Box 3
00014 Helsingin yliopisto, Finland
Contact persons
Contact persons for the processing described in this notice are:
Josefina Sipinen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, [email protected]
Åsa von Schoultz, Professor (Political Science), Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, [email protected], tel. +358 50 303 5686, +358 29 412 4822
Contact details for the Data Protection Officer
You can contact the Data Protection Officer by email: [email protected]
Description of the research project and purpose of personal data processing
MOBILEU investigates attitudes towards non-resident citizens’ electoral rights in home country parliamentary elections in Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Poland and Portugal. These five countries differ in the extent to which they grant political rights to their citizens permanently living abroad.
The project collects survey data among resident and non-resident citizens of these five countries. This enables a comparison of views on the right to vote in parliamentary elections between citizens of different countries and separately between citizens living permanently in each country and citizens living outside the country. In addition, the project examines how, for example, the duration of living abroad and the age at the time of emigration are reflected in the views of citizens living abroad about the right to vote in their origin country’s parliamentary elections.
MOBILEU is a collaborative research project led by the University of Helsinki with partners from University College Cork (Ireland) and the University of Liège (Belgium). University of Helsinki is responsible for the collection of the survey data.
Research participants are recruited by advertising the survey on social media platforms and through research project’s stakeholders.
All results of the study will be presented in summary statistical tables and charts and, therefore, individual responses will not be identifiable. The results will be published in academic journals and policy briefs.
Read more about the research project at www.mobileuproject.com.
What personal data do we process?
Respondents are asked questions about their views on voting rights in parliamentary elections of citizens permanently living abroad. In addition, the respondents are asked about their views on politics (e.g. interest in politics, trust in the political system) and about voting in elections. Respondents are also asked to provide the following background information: age, gender, level of education, citizenship, mother tongue, own and parents’ country of birth, current country of residence, the duration of residence abroad, and the reason for emigrating.
Before analysing the data, researchers at the University of Helsinki will recode and/or remove all information that enables identification of individual respondents.
Sources for personal data
Personal data is obtained from the respondents.
Sensitive data
The processing includes the following information that is regarded as special category data in the light of the data protection regulation:
- Political opinions
The processing of this special category data is necessary for scientific research.
Lawful basis for processing personal data
The legal basis for processing personal data is scientific research purposes.
The parties involved in the processing and their responsibilities
The data will be collected and processed by researchers working in the MOBILEU project at the University of Helsinki. The research material will be handed over to the members of the research team working at the partner universities of the project (University College Cork and University of Liège) in such a way that all direct identifiers have been removed and some of the indirect identifying information (such as year of birth) has been recoded so that individual respondents cannot be identified from the data.
Do we disclose your personal data to third parties?
We do not disclose your personal data to third parties.
Automated decision-making and profiling
No automated decisions will be made.
Transfers of personal data to countries outside the EU/European Economic Area
The data is not transferred outside the EU/EEA.
Data protection principles
The personal data is stored in a protected folder in the University of Helsinki’s server, and only researchers working in the MOBILEU project at the University of Helsinki have access to the file. Access to the file requires authorized username, password and two-step authentication.
Individual respondents cannot be directly identified from the survey data, unless they have provided direct identifiers in the open-ended items, such as a rare professional, job or official title or their own name. If the respondents provide such information, it will be deleted immediately after data collection has been finished.
The research material will be handed over to the members of the research team working at the partner universities of the project (University College Cork and the University of Liège) in such a way that all direct identifiers have been removed and some of the indirect identifying information (such as year of birth) has been recoded so that individual respondents cannot be identified from the data.
How long do we process and retain your personal data?
All direct identifiers and some of the indirect identifiers will be deleted/recoded right after the data collection has ended (Spring 2023) to ensure that individual respondents cannot be identified from the data.
Processing of personal data after the end of the study
The data is stored both for the evaluation of the reliability of the results of this study and for subsequent scientific research in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The research data are offered for permanent archiving without personal data at the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (www.fsd.fi). The Archive may hand over the data for reuse to registered clients for research, teaching and study.
What rights do you have?
The contact details in matters concerning the rights of the participant is the contact point mentioned in section 1 of this notice.
Right to withdraw your consent
When the processing is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before the withdrawal.
Right to access
You have the right to know whether we process your personal data and what data we process about you. You have also the right to request access to that data.
Right to rectification
You have the right to request for the rectification of inaccurate personal data concerning you. You also have the right to have incomplete personal data completed.
Right to erasure and right to be forgotten
You have the right to request the erasure of your data from our systems. The data will be erased in the following cases:
- the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed
- You withdraw your consent on which the processing was based and there is no other legal ground for the processing
- You object to the processing and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for the processing
- The personal data have been unlawfully processed
- The personal data have to be erased for compliance with a legal obligation in European Union or Member State law to which the controller is subject
You do not have the right to erasure, if the processing is necessary:
- For compliance with a legal obligation which requires processing by law
- For the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority
- For archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes, or statistical purposes if the erasure is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of the objectives of that processing
- For the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims
Right to restriction of processing
You have the right to request the restriction of processing. This means that we store the data but do not process it in any other way.
You have this right when:
- The accuracy of the personal data is contested by you. Then the processing will be restricted until the accuracy of the data is verified.
- The processing is unlawful and the data subject opposes the erasure of the personal data and requests the restriction of their use instead
- We no longer need the data for the purposes of the processing, but you need the data for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims
- You have objected to processing that is based on legitimate interest. Then the processing will be restricted for the time it is verified whether the legitimate ground for the controller override those of the data subject.
Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority
You can always contact us if you have any questions or concerns about the processing of your personal data. However, you have also the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Ombudsman’s Office if you think your personal data has been processed in violation of applicable data protection laws.
Contact details:
Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman
Visiting address: Ratapihantie 9, 6. krs, 00520 Helsinki, Finland
Postal address: PL 800, 00521 Helsinki, Finland
Switchboard: +358 29 56 66700
E-mail: [email protected]